


Gladly A Fool With You

by bendingsignpost



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Bilbo Has Issues, Dick Jokes, Dirty Jokes, Drunkenness, Friends to Lovers, Hangover, Innuendo, M/M, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Thorin is a Softie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:23:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingsignpost/pseuds/bendingsignpost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you certain this is <i>singing</i>?" Bilbo asked, wincing at the cacophony of Lake-town in celebration. </p><p>Thorin granted him a smile. "They seem to be. You disagree?"</p><p>"Give me a bit of your ale and I might change my mind."</p><p>A laugh, an actual laugh! Hard to hear beneath the merriment, but true and strong. Bilbo vowed that instant he would hear that laugh properly. In so noisy a hall, that meant Bilbo would have to make him laugh very loudly indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night

"Excuse me! _Excuse me_."

 

The crowd refused to part for one small Hobbit, which came as no surprise to Bilbo. Lake-town celebrations were absurdly packed affairs, full of Big Folk who refused to so much as glance down. They gestured without a care as to whose head might be on level with their motions.

 

"I'm trying to get through here!" Bilbo insisted, but the singing drowned him out. He couldn't see the source of it, not trapped in this oblivious, talkative forest of Men, and that was precisely the reason behind his mission. "I--oh bother."

 

Head ducked, Bilbo pushed through to the long table of the hall. Drinks spilled behind him and Bilbo did not so much as apologize twice. The company of Dwarves had taught him many things, including the way he climbed up on a chair and stepped onto the table itself. A cheer went up around him, as well as cry for someone to put this curly-haired child to bed. With a very polite tone, Bilbo responded with what he was certain was a very rude word. All of the snatches of Khuzdul he'd picked up seemed to be.

 

Down the table Bilbo went, refusing to be pulled off or pulled into conversation. He did not stop once, though he did occasionally stoop, and once he had travelled far enough, he faced the difficulty of climbing down with a loaded plate.

 

By the time he made his way to the singers, it was another song, but many of the voices were the same. One in particular, one Bilbo had half-thought to be imagined. Though much of the Company seldom held back, Thorin Oakenshield rarely sang himself.

 

Certainly he never sang anything without solemnity. The weight and dignity Thorin carried were perhaps his only raiment that had survived their long journey.

 

Thorin's voice dropped from the song. "Stand aside! Let our Hobbit through!" At the command, the crowd parted, each of the Big Folk turning their heads at last to see Bilbo. From the other end of this impromptu hallway of humanity, Thorin raised a tankard high. "Master Baggins, join me!"

 

Bilbo did so at a scurry. He joined Thorin, and Balin and Dwalin as well. Balin elbowed his brother in the side and pulled Bilbo to stand between himself and Thorin. Dwalin barked a laugh and made space easily enough, which oughtn't to have been possible in the crowd.

 

"Good of you to join us, laddie." Balin clapped him on the shoulder, and the heat and volume of the hall became cosy, Dwarven rather than oppressive. "Could you not find a drink to go with that food?"

 

From behind Balin, Dwalin thrust a tankard at him. "Take my second."

 

Balin snorted. "His 'second,' he says."

 

"My first, my second," Dwalin answered, though 'left tankard' and 'right tankard' might have been more appropriate.

 

"Much too heavy, I'm afraid," Bilbo said, "but thank you."

 

"Share in mine."

 

"I'm sorry? I mean, what?" He turned around carefully, in such space as there was for turning. There was very little of it, and Bilbo was hardly about to spill his plate.

 

"You'll share in mine," Thorin repeated. It was neither invitation or command, but a statement of fact.

 

"Thank you," Bilbo said. "But don't think that means you can pick off my plate!" He brandished a finger in the small gap between them.

 

Thorin's mouth shifted beneath his beard, so very similar a motion to the gentle crinkling of his eyes. The warmth of drink and the hall suited his face well, infinitely better than the pallor of dungeons. "I know better than that, Master Baggins. I would sooner take gold from a dragon than food from a Hobbit."

 

Bilbo's laugh was hardly the only one, not when a town had come to watch a King, but it was jarringly loud to his own ears.

 

"So that's your plan for next week," Bilbo answered, voice raised for even the Big Folk to hear, and an even louder round of laughter rose in the hall. How very strange, to be the centre of such attention! How nerve-wracking after so much time spent in secrecy and shadow.

 

Thorin paid as little attention to the eyes upon him as a mountain did raindrops. "Perhaps then, perhaps later. My patience is no small thing."

 

Dwalin said something Bilbo couldn't quite catch, something about the duration and firmness of Dwarven patience, and most of it was lost in the roar of laughter around them.

 

Bilbo asked Balin, "What did he--"

 

"A song!" Thorin called out over the noise, and his cry was picked up. "Give us a song!"

 

Men and women shouted names of songs Bilbo had never heard of. With a staggering lack of consensus, their corner of the hall lurched into an opening verse. What the sound lacked in beauty, it possessed in cheer.

 

Bilbo leaned closer to Thorin, and Thorin lowered his head, ear offered beneath his shining hair. Remarkable what a long-awaited bath could do. The smell of him had changed, ostensibly for the better, but a Thorin without the scents of the road was hardly a Thorin at all. Still, he smelled of metal and ale, and thus very much like the Dwarf he was.

 

"Yes?" Thorin prompted.

 

"Um." Bilbo blinked, still staring. What had he been about to say? "Are you certain this is a song?"

 

Thorin granted him a smile. "They seem to be. You disagree?"

 

"Give me a bit of your ale and I might change my mind."

 

A laugh, an actual laugh! Hard to hear beneath the merriment, but true and strong. Bilbo vowed that instant he would hear that laugh properly. In so noisy a hall, that meant Bilbo would have to make him laugh very loudly indeed.

 

Thorin offered his tankard, but such was the size and weight of the absurd thing that they had to hold it together. With one hand busy with his plate, the other nudging up the base of the tankard, it was an awkward affair for Bilbo, but Thorin held the handle with ease and without hurry. Bilbo managed to drink without spilling, even as he gave a noise of surprise at the rich splash of flavour against his tongue. He drank deeper than he'd intended to, but Thorin did not begrudge him that.

 

"You have no idea," said Bilbo, pausing for breath, "how much better this is than what everyone else is drinking." He kept his voice down, for Thorin's ears alone, because Bilbo Baggins was, after all, a Baggins, and that meant manners. In this case, it also meant leaning quite close.

 

"I have more than an idea." With that, Thorin downed what remained, his head tilted back, the beads of his braids shifting over his chest. "And I have plans to make the most of it." He smiled down at Bilbo, and there had been something Bilbo had thought to say. There had been, he was certain of it, but a worry distracted him, that Thorin would vanish into the crowd in search of more drink, and how would Bilbo find him again?

 

But Thorin did not move from his side, and it soon became clear he had no need to. A man attended to him, bringing more ale, and Thorin accepted as one might follow a habit long lost.

 

"The King's cup doesn't run dry, I see," Bilbo mused, not entirely certain this was what he had meant to say.

 

"Not tonight," Thorin answered. He drank and again offered Bilbo a taste. The tankard had gained in weight, but they managed it with better coordination than the first attempt. "I have hopes for tonight," Thorin said as Bilbo drank.

 

"Mm?" Bilbo asked, unable to see Thorin's expression or, indeed, anything other than metal and ale. What absurdly sized cups!

 

"Great hopes." Thorin let him drink his fill, assisting him as if Bilbo could possibly drink as much as a Dwarf in a single swig.

 

Bilbo stopped to gasp for air, and Thorin lowered his hand only after Bilbo shook his head. They stood side by side, Thorin with his drink, Bilbo with his food and growing curiosity. Such a small question, possibly a small answer, and he hesitated in the asking. When Balin began to sing beside him, Bilbo nearly jumped out of his skin as well as his thoughts.

 

A new song? The second, or the third? Disappointment prodded at him, for he had meant to listen to them all.

 

The Big Folk of Lake-town picked up Balin's tune with a joyful ease, and laughter broke out among them all when a chorus of Common met one of Khuzdul. Was it truly the same song? Perhaps it was, for if any song could be of Men and Dwarves joined together, it would be of the splendour of market day in Dale. Had Balin once sung this with the forebears of these Men? Bilbo made a note to ask. He turned, looking to Balin, and Thorin's voice joined his kin's.

 

Thorin, singing with joy and speaking of hope! And surely Thorin would know the history of the song as well as Balin might, both of them Dwarves of Erebor as they were.

 

Or perhaps not: the Men had more verses than the Dwarves did and continued singing long after Dwalin, Balin and Thorin shouted their last. They stamped and clapped, and Bilbo kept careful track of his own toes. Thorin looked down as well, smiled faintly, and planted his heavily-shod feet where they could do no damage.

 

"What about?" Bilbo asked before another interruption could arise.

 

"The song?"

 

Bilbo shook his head. "Your great hopes. You said. Before."

 

A sudden light shone behind Thorin's previously blank eyes. "I did."

 

"What about? If you don't mind my asking," he hurried to add when Thorin did not immediately reply.

 

"This is neither time nor place for the telling," Thorin answered, "but you may certainly ask again."

 

"If we can catch a moment alone?" Bilbo asked. "I mean, before bed, of course."

 

Thorin's smile warmed Bilbo from toes to ear tips. "That, I promise." He held Bilbo's gaze and a decision moved across his eyes. "In fact..." Thorin nodded toward the door, a question in the motion.

 

Rather needlessly, Bilbo caught the stationary King by the arm. "I'm hardly about to deprive a party of its guest of honour. And, and besides. Besides." Thorin was happy, perhaps the happiest Bilbo had ever known him. Pull Thorin away from this? Never.

 

The words dried up on his tongue as he recalled they were, in fact, in the middle of a party. Song finished, a lull had hit their corner, and the multitude of gazes upon him were nearly enough to rival Thorin's.

 

"Besides," Bilbo continued, more to the Big Folk, "I haven't heard a single story tonight! I've come all this way from the Shire, and not heard a one!"

 

This sparked a deluge of suggestions and more than one round of laughter. An older woman broke through with a tale, and many laughed with anticipated amusement. That story of the previous Master of Laketown soon gave way to another, and another, and sounds of merriment came from all, Dwalin's bark, Balin's chuckle, Thorin's pleased rumble.

 

Bilbo's empty plate vanished during this time, wordlessly removed by the fellow who kept refilling Thorin's tankard. For the briefest of moments, Bilbo considered braving the journey back to the tables.

 

"Am I keeping you from your food, Master Hobbit?" Thorin asked. He leaned close, then swayed closer. His nose bumped against the tip of Bilbo's ear, and his breath warmed Bilbo's cheek. The long line of him warmed Bilbo's entire right side.

 

"You couldn't if you tried," Bilbo answered, trying for a joke, trying not to shiver, succeeding at neither. "But I don't imagine I could find my way back to you if I were to step away." Surely the crowd would swallow Thorin up, and another would step in to take Bilbo's place.

 

Thorin gripped Bilbo's shoulder, all his shoulder, in one strong hand, and his arm hung heavy against Bilbo's back. "Then stay."

 

"Besides," Bilbo continued, "I'm tired of being mistaken for a child among these Big Folk." At Thorin's snort, Bilbo tried for a full laugh. "One asked why I hadn't been put to bed hours ago! The _cheek_!"

 

Thorin smiled, but no more merriment than that touched his lips. He leaned close and, with the great articulation of a Dwarf well into his cups, said, "Should the question again arise, assure the fool that I will be taking you to bed in due time."

 

Bilbo swatted at him, as much as he could swat at a warm wall behind his elbow. "Get your drunk breath out of my face."

 

Quite noticeably, Thorin did not. "And put it where?"

 

"Wherever you like, I suppose, but preferably somewhere I can't smell it." He waved his hand before his nose and startled when the Men around them laughed. Though Thorin tightened his hold upon Bilbo's shoulder, Bilbo relaxed only a small amount. His ears burned with more than the heat of Thorin's breath. "Oh dear, I'm being very rude." Monopolizing Thorin, and closing off conversation at a party! Hardly the behaviour of a respectable Hobbit.

 

"You are welcome to be," Thorin assured him. "Exceedingly."

 

"Not to you, you lump." Bilbo attempted another swat, the top of his forearm tapping against Thorin's chest, the backs of his curled fingers hitting Thorin nearly in the throat and certainly in the beard. "I'll be as rude to you as I like." This, he said far more loudly, and to great amusement.

 

"I accept the honour. An insult from a Hobbit is a rare thing indeed."

 

Bilbo huffed. "You're as thick as your Mountain, King."

 

"And that is twice a compliment."

 

A distinctive guffaw sounded from Bilbo's left, and there Dwalin was when Bilbo turned, laughing at his brother's expression. With Balin's head turned away, Bilbo couldn't catch a glimpse, but Dwalin's reaction was proof enough.

 

"Perhaps as thick, but hardly as Lonely," said Dwalin with a snort.

 

"Not by half," Thorin agreed, and he raised his tankard high before draining it yet again.

 

In that pause, Balin launched into a tale of the Erebor of the past. Dwalin let out a grumble, a low mutter regarding lost fun, and Thorin made a quiet, smug sound into Bilbo's ear. Despite Balin's story, eyes remained upon the Dwarf King and the Hobbit holding him upright. What a pair they must make!

 

Bilbo giggled at the thought. He looked up at Thorin to find him already looking down. Bilbo found no words to say, but his cheeks ached with grinning.

 

"What is it?" Thorin asked, his expression much the same. Again, he leaned in close, and he kept his voice beneath Balin's story even if he didn't keep his breath away from Bilbo's nose.

 

 "I was thinking," Bilbo explained. "About." He flapped his hand again against Thorin's chest, or at least he tried to. Thorin had hunched too low, or perhaps Bilbo's aim had suffered from the ale. In either case, he found his fingers beneath Thorin's chin, as if the Dwarf were a cat.

 

"My beard?" Thorin asked, not unamused.

 

Bilbo shook his head, and it wobbled only a little. "Us."

 

Thorin smiled. He smiled for quite some time, and he seemed as unwilling as Bilbo to stop. His hand shifted on Bilbo's shoulder, and Bilbo wished himself wider, sturdier. Someone Thorin could lean on as heavily as he liked, no matter how many times that Man refilled Thorin's tankard. Thorin held the drinking vessel out without so much as taking his eyes away from Bilbo's.

 

"You," Bilbo said, "are a much happier drunk than I would have imagined."

 

"I am much happier than I would have imagined," Thorin corrected. He punctuated this with a gesture, sloshing a bit of ale upon the floor but, thankfully, none upon Bilbo.

 

"Well. Good!" There ought to have been more words to say, ones more fitting for shining blue eyes and flashing white teeth amid a dark beard. Perhaps there were such words, somewhere. Somewhere else, and Bilbo could hardly go looking for them now. "Give me a bit of that," he said instead, his hand joining Thorin's on the tankard's handle.

 

Able to use both hands now, Bilbo might have managed the tankard on his own, but Thorin took no chances. "Drink to your pleasure," Thorin said, bringing the metal lip to Bilbo's, and Bilbo did just that. He tasted oats and barrels and no traces of home, and there was nothing missing in the flavour. He drank until he gasped, and the room swayed in time with Thorin's thumb upon his shoulder.

 

"Food," Bilbo said. "Entirely necessary. Have you eaten? You ought to." The group around them was speaking much more amongst themselves, and surely they wouldn't miss Thorin for a minute, perhaps two or three. "There's this sort of fish pastry, or there were. There might still be."

 

"Do not speak to me of fish," Thorin muttered darkly, and Bilbo laughed until his stomach felt fit to burst.

 

"Better in us than on us," Bilbo said. On the third attempt, he caught one of Thorin's braids. He wrapped his hand tight around the bead. "Come along."

 

Thorin's expression shifted, and there was no possibility of looking away, no matter how Balin cleared his throat behind Bilbo. "Are you giving me orders now, Master Baggins?"

 

Bilbo shook his head only to wobble against Thorin's side. He released the bead, needing a steadying palm on Thorin's chest instead. Thorin's arm about his shoulders could only hold him so well. "Taking care of you, I ought to think."

 

"I withdraw my protest," Thorin murmured. "Lead on."

 

So saying, Thorin set the pace, and Bilbo stepped quick before he could be dragged. He had no chance to look back, not even when Dwalin let out a particularly hard laugh behind them. The Big Folk parted for Thorin the way they never would for Bilbo, but didn't everything, really?

 

"You're a walking landslide," Bilbo told him, it suddenly very important that Thorin know this. "You are. Just... rocks. Everywhere."

 

Thorin paused midstride, Bilbo staggered, and Thorin kept him upright. "What did you say?" Thorin asked.

 

"In a good way, of course," Bilbo hastened to assure him. "Like, like something, I'm sure."

 

 "What is it you mean to say?" Thorin asked, and their foreheads nearly knocked as they resumed their progress. "Or did you merely drop poetry in your cup?"

 

"Your cup," Bilbo corrected.

 

"Where is it?"

 

"What?"

 

"My cup."

 

Bilbo looked at the hand on his left shoulder, and he looked at the hand on his right elbow. "You're not holding it."

 

"No," Thorin agreed.

 

"I think you must have left it over there." Bilbo sighed. "Shall we go back for it?"

 

"No, onward."

 

Onward they went, only to discover that, somehow, Balin had reached the table long before them.

 

"Balin!" said Bilbo. In his own language, Thorin said something as well, and it sounded less cheerful.

 

Balin pressed a bundle into Bilbo's hands, thick napkins wrapped around foodstuffs still warm. "Do you remember where they've put us up for tonight?" Balin asked, half-shouting over the party and Bilbo's thank-you. "He'll not be fit for public much longer."

 

"What? Oh. Oh!" Bilbo nodded rapidly, and he managed to do so without falling over or dropping anything. An accomplishment, with only one of Thorin's hands to steady him. "Yes, I think so! Thorin? Thorin, listen, Balin has something to say."

 

"What does Balin say?" Thorin asked Bilbo. He had, perhaps from the air itself, acquired another tankard.

 

"He says _I_ should take _you_ to bed, you drunk old Dwarf," Bilbo replied.

 

Thorin let out a boom of laughter and raised his new drink high. "Might all friends be so true!"

 

"I'll drink to that," Balin said with a sigh, taking the tankard from the King's hand. "Now off with you."

 

In reply, Thorin clapped his newly freed hand on Balin's shoulder and, grinning widely, crashed their foreheads together. Everyone around them winced, Bilbo included, and if there had been a drop of ale in that tankard, there wasn't now.

 

"Off with you," Balin repeated, more fond than exasperated, if somewhat sticky. He waved a hand at his drunken King before leaning closer to Bilbo. "I'd tell you to take care of him, laddie, but I know I don't need to."

 

Words jumbled up inside Bilbo's throat, never quite making it to his mouth. He nodded a nod more serious than any nod in his life. He hugged the napkin bundle against his chest, and if it didn't feel like the best use of his hands, it was still a good one.

 

"We'll see you on the boat tomorrow," Thorin told Balin. "Don't be late."

 

Balin snorted and pressed on Thorin's shoulder. Thorin staggered away with a grin, pulling Bilbo with him. The floor was stickier underfoot than Balin's sleeve, and Bilbo was glad to suddenly be outside, even shivering in the September chill as he was.

 

Thorin picked their path, leaving Bilbo the task of steering them around any obstacles a stubborn Dwarf might try to walk through. He kept his eyes on his feet, and he kept his feet on the wooden planks, and he kept Thorin well away from the water's edge.

 

"Here," Thorin said.

 

"Here what?" Bilbo asked. "That's the wrong house."

 

Thorin narrowed his eyes at the building, as if it were trying to rob him. "No, it isn't."

 

"Thorin, ours had a window. On the left."

 

Thorin pointed. "There."

 

"On the left of the front door," Bilbo added. "And there were steps. And two lanterns, one on either side of the door."

 

"But I turned right at the boat. I remember that boat."

 

"Thorin, boats _move_."

 

His gaze still suspicious, Thorin lowered his arm. The pointing one. Not the one warming Bilbo's waist. That arm was already quite low.

 

"Perhaps," Thorin said slowly, with difficulty, as if at an entirely new thought, "I was mistaken."

 

Bilbo did not laugh, largely because if he began to, he would never budge Thorin ever again. "Hold this, you," he said instead, thrusting the bundle upon Thorin. "Now it's my turn." He took Thorin by the hand and immediately regretted it, the chill sweeping in against his hip and the small of his back. "Let's try this way."

 

"Is this more of you taking care of me?" Thorin asked. It was too dark to see a teasing twitch to his lips, and besides, Bilbo couldn't look, far too navigationally busy.

 

"If you need ask, you're in need of more care than I'd thought," he said, and Thorin rumbled a low laugh.

 

"How much care do you intend on giving me?"

 

"I hadn't considered a limit," Bilbo answered. "Oh, this way!"

 

They attracted their share of looks and attention, even with so many of the town at the party, and it was a good thing, too. Receiving and following precise directions, Bilbo towed Thorin to the right door, a door with a lantern on both sides, and a window on the left. They stumbled inside and stumbled upstairs, though Bilbo's memory of that journey was foggy at best. There was a lit candle in Bilbo's hand, and he feared he was dripping wax everywhere.

 

"Which is your room?" Bilbo asked. "Or have you lost that too?"

 

In reply, Thorin hauled him to the second-nearest door and through it. Bilbo let out a cry, and Thorin's instinctual reaction was, for some reason, to nearly crush him.

 

"What's wrong?" Thorin asked.

 

"You made me spill wax on my hand." Bilbo held the evidence out to him, but Thorin merely glowered at his hurt.

 

"Do not give me such cause to worry."

 

"Then don't make me spill wax on my hand."

 

"Set that down." Thorin set the example, placing the napkin bundle on a Man-sized table.

 

Just this once, Bilbo did as he was told. He needed both hands to climb onto the chair, both hands and more, but Thorin pushed him up by the bum without needing to be asked. Bilbo wobbled in his seat and Thorin made no protest at being used as an armrest, or even at Bilbo's hand tangled in the hair behind his head. Thorin secured him further, a hand heavy on his thigh.

 

"You should eat too," Bilbo told him. "You'll regret it in the morning, if you don't."

 

Thorin shook his head. Thick and warm, his hair slid around and through Bilbo's fingers. "Tonight will have no regrets."

 

"Not without a bit of food and a barrel of water," Bilbo warned. That said, he popped a sizeable chunk of cheese in his mouth. He offered another to Thorin, was quietly rebuffed, and introduced the second piece to the first.

 

"You make a fine squirrel," Thorin said. His hand not on Bilbo's thigh rose to poke at Bilbo's cheek.

 

Bilbo glared and stuffed an entire meat pie in his mouth like a petulant tween. A small meat pie, for a Man, but quite large for one Hobbit's mouth.

 

"A most impressive squirrel." Thorin's eyes widened as Bilbo chewed, but his eyelids began to droop long before Bilbo was finished. Thorin leaned his head on Bilbo's arm, his shoulder, and Bilbo pet his nape.

 

"You should get into bed before you end up sleeping on the floor," Bilbo said after the final swallow. Or perhaps not the final. Balin had packed the bundle well.

 

Thorin moved not at all. "And you?"

 

"I'm sitting here until I have the rest of this inside me."

 

"Just the food?"

 

"Well, I'm not about to eat the candle! Or do you have something to drink?"

 

Thorin laughed hard against Bilbo's shoulder far longer than the candle joke deserved. "I've something, I'm sure." He lifted his head. His eyes gleamed in the light of the tiny flame. "Shall I fetch it for you?"

 

"Water first, before anything."

 

"As you say," said Thorin, "There is a pitcher beside the bed." And yet Thorin utterly failed to fetch it. Minutes more passed before he pulled away from Bilbo's side.

 

An involuntary noise of protest managed to escape Bilbo's closed, though full, mouth. A shiver took him and continued even at the return of Thorin's arm about him.

 

"The bed is warmer," Thorin told him, and it was lovely, in a way, the number of words they did not need to say. A chill noticed, a chill warmed.

 

Even so: "The bed must be _frozen_."

 

"The bed _will be_ warmer, and I am going to it."

 

"Good for you," Bilbo replied. "I hope you and the icy sheets are happy together." He pat Thorin upon the head, or certainly intended to. His fingers wove through thick hair over a blazing scalp, and were trapped there. "Mm, what a furnace you are."

 

"A Dwarf is a forge," Thorin corrected, his eyes shut.

 

"Of course you are."

 

"This is a truth."

 

"Oh, certainly."

 

The candle shrank in its holder, a flickering limit on the night. Thorin leaned on him, heavy and warm and drooping, as if settling into pillows instead of onto a Hobbit.

 

"If you fall asleep here, you'll crush me," Bilbo said, but he said it softly, quieter even than Thorin's steady breaths. "Or you'll knock me off this chair."

 

Thorin straightened, not pulling away but drawing up, and Bilbo was cold all the same. Thorin bowed his head, face tilted far downward. "Forgive my lethargy."

 

Bilbo had seen the gesture well enough to recognise it when offered. He tapped his brow to Thorin's, just a tap, and Thorin's face cracked in a wide grin. When Bilbo again found his tongue, he said, "I'm amazed you've not collapsed."

 

With raised eyebrow, Thorin asked, "Do you doubt my stamina?"

 

Unheeding of the minuscule space between them, Bilbo snorted. "I respect their ale. It's certainly fouled your breath enough."

 

Thorin let out one great exhale in Bilbo's face, and Bilbo shoved the laughing Dwarf away from him with a groan.

 

Bilbo waved a finger before Thorin's nose. He waved it up and down and a few other directions besides. "You," he said, "are _putrid_."

 

"And you are cold," Thorin replied, stepping backward toward the bed. With a mighty dignity belied by his wavering steps, he added, "Freeze without me, if that is what you prefer."

 

"Putrid and petulant."

 

"You are petulant," Thorin countered, and he managed a disapproving frown only until Bilbo was bent nearly in two with snickering.

 

Catching his breath, Bilbo dropped his head onto his folded arms. A crumb stuck between his forearm and the table, but he couldn't be bothered to wipe it away. His feet swung listlessly, pleasantly. It felt right to sway. A warm, orange glow stroked his eyelids, and he shifted a little to the left, so as to not catch his hair afire.

 

The shifting noises continued long after Bilbo stopped, the clack of metal and the tired whisper of cloth. One loud thunk was followed by another. Then, still but not soft, a moment of quiet.

 

Bilbo worked his eyes open, and there Thorin stood, ready for sleep. As if nestled down for the night themselves, his boots peeked out from beneath his shirt on the floor. Beside the absurdly tall bed, Thorin stood, his furry chest exposed to the chill. Even in the light of a single candle, Bilbo could see his peaked nipples. The rest of him must have been gooseflesh, not that Thorin would ever acknowledge a weakness so mundane as the temperature. Unspeaking, Thorin held his gaze, clearly waiting on Bilbo.

 

"I'm not getting up," Bilbo told him, in no mood to find his own bed. He set his cheek back down on his arm. He closed his eyes, hardly needing to see Thorin's scowl to know of it. "Not at the moment, anyway."

 

"Petulant and obstinate."

 

"There you go again, talking about yourself."

 

Thorin snorted. The bed frame creaked and sheets rustled. A moment of stillness was broken by an abrupt chattering of teeth, and Bilbo's mirth nearly dislodged him from his chair.

 

"Insolent Hobbit!" Thorin snapped. He half-rolled, half-stumbled out of the bed in a scramble for one of his abandoned layers, only to leap with a hiss when his bare feet touched the floor, and if Bilbo laughed any harder, he was going to piss himself. His eyes were damp, his cheeks and stomach aching, but the true danger resided in his trousers. He didn't dare move and barely dared to speak.

 

"I told you!" Bilbo admonished in a hiccupping squeak. "I did, don't say I didn't!"

 

Thorin's shirt muffled his growled mutterings and nearly trapped the Dwarf's head. With a bit of wobbling, Thorin had it on properly. Most of his hair caught beneath his collar, Thorin glared. He glared so fiercely, and Bilbo bit the first knuckle of his finger to keep himself quiet.

 

It burst out all the same, waves of laughter followed by exhausted, shaking sighs, only for Bilbo to be set off again the moment he'd gotten back his breath. The waves grew smaller, like a fading echo, and, once able, Bilbo took a long moment to simply breathe. He stayed there, folded in half and occasionally squeaking, until the wood beneath his brow felt warm and Bilbo himself quite cold.

 

As steady as he could be, Bilbo asked, "Is there a chamber pot in here?" He paused to let Thorin answer, but answer, Thorin did not.

 

"It's only, I know Bard had that toilet, well, that excuse for a toilet," Bilbo went on, confiding this to the table. "So I can imagine there might not be. But I could fall through a toilet like that, I'd fall right through. And drown! Fall down a toilet and drown, terrible fate after making it all this way. So I'd much prefer the pot. Is there one?"

 

Thorin grunted from the bed, which perhaps meant yes. Certainly, it meant he was lying with his back turned, sulking. But perhaps it meant there was a chamber pot, too.

 

With the greatest of care, Bilbo eased himself down from his perch. He held tight to the chair until the room stood still. He rose on tiptoe and retrieved the candle from the table. He searched about, more with his eyes than his feet, and yes, there was a pot, tucked beneath the foot of the bed. He put down the candle and pulled out the pot. He removed the lid and inspected the pot with great attention. There was, in fact, a design on the bottom of the pot, but a chamber pot it certainly was. How else to explain the painted caricature of the Master of Laketown and instructions, writ in Westron, to " _aim for the eyes"_?

 

Bilbo had himself quite the giggle and even more of a piss. His aim suffered as his relief mounted. He shook himself off and put himself away before replacing the lid and, unthinkingly, blowing out the candle.

 

In the sudden darkness, he stared blankly at the shape in his hand. He set it down beside the pot, where Thorin probably wouldn't trip over it come morning.

 

One hand tracing the edge of the bed, Bilbo worked his way around. He could make out the shape of the door, a vague sort of outline, but manners dictated one last detour before questing for his own room.

 

"Thorin," Bilbo whispered. Then louder: "Thorin?"

 

Thorin did not shift, as he would have if he were asleep. Even drunk to the gills, Thorin remained a wary sleeper, Bilbo was certain.

 

"Grumpy old Dwarf." His effort great and his coordination small, Bilbo attempted to scale the mountain of a bed. Absurdly high, absurd in all ways, especially in the dark. He scaled it with aid of the bedside table, nearly knocking the unseen pitcher of water to the floor. Both he and the pitcher wobbled dangerously, and Bilbo managed to steady the pair of them together.

 

Patting the mattress before him, Bilbo crawled forward on hands and knees, though occasionally on face and knees. He found hair before he found the rest of Thorin, and he was very careful not to tug on it. He brushed it out of the way, in fact, and so learned where exactly Thorin's head was.

 

"Thorin," said Bilbo, and Thorin did not roll over. Bilbo set his hand on Thorin's shoulder and shuffled closer on his knees. The softness of the bed called to him, and he tilted rather heavily. The top of his head weighed far too much, and the hair at Thorin's temple was soft beneath Bilbo's brow. "Thorin."

 

Thorin shifted, just a movement of the shoulders, and Bilbo shifted around him, nose in Thorin's hair and lips at his ear. His head was so very heavy and, breath aside, Thorin's scent was a comfort.

 

"I know you're offended," Bilbo began, "but I shan't apologise for laughing. Not ever, for long as I shall live." He held to Thorin's shoulder with his own small hand, as serious a pledge as any oath. "I haven't laughed like that since... Did you know, I have never laughed so freely in all my life? Not the once.

 

"So I shan't apologise. But I will thank you." He squeezed Thorin's shoulder as hard as he could, and he knelt there bent quite in half, one knee against Thorin's back, his head upon Thorin's. He rested there, and the stone beneath him again became flesh. Thorin moved the arm he lay upon, and the very instant his hand touched Bilbo's, Bilbo held him fast and hard, and was held harder still.

 

"Thank you," said Bilbo. "I will... I will gladly be a fool with you, should you be a fool with me. Gladly."

 

Without relinquishing his grip on Bilbo's hand, Thorin shifted onto his back. Still Bilbo bent over him, now forehead to forehead. Thorin's other hand cupped the back of Bilbo's head with delicious heat. They breathed the same air, Thorin thankfully through his nose, and all was quiet and steady.

 

"And," Bilbo said, needing more words to say, "I don't think you're half so offended as you play at. In fact, I know it."

 

"And how do you know it?" Thorin rumbled.

 

Bilbo promptly switched to breathing through his mouth. "I can hear you smiling, for a start. Right there, just like that."

 

"Perhaps you have appeased me."

 

"Perhaps someone seeks attention," Bilbo countered, "and knows full well how to draw it in."

 

"Draw it in, I certainly can." Thorin proved this with a pull, tugging Bilbo out of his kneel and tucking Bilbo beside him. Bilbo giggled, flopping about unresisting as he was manoeuvred beneath warmed blankets. "Still, you are wrong."

 

Bilbo snorted against Thorin's chest even as he began to slide off him.

 

Thorin tightened his arms. "I need not seek what I already possess."

 

"Arrogant Dwarf," Bilbo said, squirming himself into a more sustainable position. He paused to spit out Thorin's hair.

 

"Contrary Hobbit." He stroked Bilbo's curls, from the crown of his head down to his nape. Slowly, gently, again and again, and despite Bilbo's best intentions to remain exactly where he was, exactly as he was, he drifted into a deep, warm sleep.


	2. Morning

A gentle touch to his pounding head woke Bilbo. He groaned and twisted away, as much as his protesting body would allow. Blankets blocked out even the mere suggestion of light, and hair stuck to Bilbo's cheek. The heat pressed against him was indeed Thorin, and Thorin was indeed awake.

 

A second touch, now to Bilbo's shoulder. No, not a second touch, but an additional one. They were slumped far too closely for counting individual touches. Closer still, when Thorin shifted to lie on his side, Bilbo's head tucked against his clavicle. A much softer pillow would have been preferred.

 

"What ails you?" Thorin asked, his voice remarkably devoid of agony.

 

Bilbo shushed him and flopped an arm against Thorin's chest. He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. After considering the effort of lifting his head, he remained as he was. "I am dead of drink," said Bilbo. "How aren't you?"

 

Thorin softened, and perhaps the absurd solidity of him, some of it, could be blamed upon tension. "Because I, Master Hobbit, am a Dwarf."

 

"I hadn't noticed." His sarcasm greater than his self-preservation, Bilbo blindly reached up and scratched the thick fur of Thorin's beard, his chin and cheek and jaw. "What sense it all makes now." Not quite soft, not quite bristly, and the texture was a welcome distraction.

 

"What would soothe you?" Thorin asked. "Beyond petting me."

 

"Oh hush," Bilbo whispered, and he withdrew his hand.

 

"What do you require? In seriousness."

 

"You, quieter."

 

"There is water," Thorin said.

 

Bilbo felt the vibration against his face more than he heard the actual words. A moment of sluggish thinking followed. "Water, yes," he said. "I should, yes." He didn't move in the slightest.

 

Thorin shifted instead, pulling away, and Bilbo let out a groan at being jostled thusly. Faint light leaked through covered windows and pinched at something unpleasant behind Bilbo's eyes. Then came the sounds of pouring, of a pitcher being set down, of a large body moving amid blankets.

 

"Here. Drink."

 

He opened his poor, pained eyes and propped himself up on his elbows, but before Bilbo could reach for the cup, Thorin brought it to his mouth for him. Bilbo saved his complaints until the cup was empty, and then said, "It may surprise you, but I actually am strong enough to hold a cup."

 

Thorin chuckled, and Bilbo sagged. He pushed himself up a bit more anyway until he leaned against the headboard, his left arm tucked into Thorin's side. The air outside the blankets was still quite cool.

 

"Even in such condition?" Thorin asked, refilling the cup. In turning back to Bilbo, he fit his arm over Bilbo's shoulders as if cradling an ailing loved one. "Would you so carelessly risk your health?"

 

"That isn't the half of it. Before first breakfast, I plan on bopping a Dwarf King right on the nose." After second breakfast, he would be off to visit a dragon, but that, he left unsaid.

 

"I tremble before your fury." Again, Thorin offered the cup. Even when Bilbo took it in both hands, he had to adjust his grip around Thorin's stubborn fingers. Fortunately for Thorin, very fortunately indeed, Bilbo needed water far more than he needed victory, and so permitted Thorin to keep his hand tangled up in the sloshing business.

 

Bilbo sipped and sighed, and his aching head fit nicely against Thorin's shoulder. His eyes fell shut, and even after Thorin set down the cup, the pain eased. His cheek to cloth, Thorin's long hair a soft presence over his brow, Bilbo breathed with increasing relief. Relief was the word, wasn't it, for soothing fingers in his hair? For gentle ministrations, for an attentive touch. It was _a_ word, and Bilbo drifted for a time, picking out a few more that sufficed.

 

He kept them to himself, of course. Thorin held him well enough without the words, right arm around Bilbo's back, left hand delicate in his hair and over his cheek. Irregularly, the soft petting brushed against Bilbo's ear, and each time, there was nothing else for it but to press closer. The position twisted Bilbo's back, and yet the growing ache could not overcome the comfort.

 

"Do you sleep?" Thorin murmured.

 

Bilbo shook his head, the tiny motion pushing his ear against Thorin's calloused palm. Thorin's fingers moved, leaving Bilbo's curls to cup his ear. It kept Bilbo from breathing, this firm stroke of the thumb from lobe to tip, no mere ghosting tickle. It wasn't quite a pinch, and a pinch was hardly a bite, but the thought of it twisted his hand in Thorin's shirt.

 

Thorin's beard shifted against Bilbo's forehead with a warm scratch. As if that were not enough, his smile was just as plain in his voice. "Was that a sound of pain?"

 

"You know it wasn't, you confounded old fool."

 

"Forgive my concern."

 

"Fine," Bilbo huffed, "but I am lying back down."

 

"Are you indeed," said Thorin, his arms budging not one bit.

 

"Yes, you're contorting my back. Or are you no longer concerned?"

 

"You accept my concern?" Still, Thorin did not move.

 

"Yes, yes, fine," Bilbo said and was freed, if only to a moderate degree. Resting on his side, he straightened his back with an audible pop. Thorin moved down to meet him, head upon the same pillow. They watched each other, Thorin's gaze far more alert than it should have been. Unable to match it, Bilbo closed his eyes with a sigh and nudged his forehead closer.

 

Thorin acted upon the invitation in an instant, and his eyebrows tickled Bilbo's forehead before skin gently settled against skin. Strong fingers returned to Bilbo's ear.

 

"Were my head not half cracked open," Bilbo muttered, "I would think this lovely."

 

"Despite my 'putrid breath' in your face?" Thorin asked, the motions of his hand infinitely more significant than his words.

 

"Your putrid breath has slain my nose, but perhaps it was a mercy killing."

 

Thorin shook his head so gently, Bilbo could be forgiven for thinking it a nuzzle. "Even with your head in two, you don't lack for words," said Thorin. "Do you ever?"

 

Bilbo opened his eyes.

 

Thorin looked back, amused and calm and perhaps a few things more.

 

"Yes," said Bilbo.

 

Though the satisfaction remained, the amusement faded from Thorin's face. His hand was heavy on Bilbo's cheek, his fingertips without motion on Bilbo's ear.  "When?" Thorin asked. "Now?"

 

The weight of Thorin's attention threatened to split Bilbo's head anew, or perhaps that was the pounding of his own heart, rapid and loud and much too much.

 

"Oh, what do you think," Bilbo said, and he kissed Thorin. His was a hurried press of the lips, quickly delivered but frozen once arrived. He closed his eyes, as Thorin was certain to keep his open, and there was only so much any reasonable person could attempt at a time.

 

Almost immediately, more than inevitably, Thorin proved that he was no reasonable person.

 

"I think," Thorin murmured against his lips, "that I know far better than to predict you." He cupped Bilbo's face in his hands. His thumbs brushed over Bilbo's eyelids in a clear demand for them to open. "I would rather hear than guess."

 

Confound the stark exposure Thorin called honesty. Confound his blatant refusal to hide his heart behind niceties, where no one would need worry over it. How could someone named Oakenshield not understand how manners were meant to be wielded?

 

"My head hurts," Bilbo said, and he made his voice plaintive.

 

There was a pause, long and terrible, the gap between dropping a teacup and knowing if it survived.

 

Thorin's hands did not move. His breathing didn't change. All pretended to remain as it had been, while still deciding on the manner of its change.

 

"That, I could have guessed," Thorin said.

 

"Perhaps you can predict me after all." He opened his eyes to find Thorin's much too close and far too concerned. "Someone ought to be able. Personally, I haven't since the night you came through my front door. It's not very Baggins-like, crossing mountains and sleeping with Kings."

 

"And who would this other King be?"

 

"There was one last night with the most atrocious breath," Bilbo said. "Bit loud, very fond of singing. Overall, I'd say you're an improvement, except he did seem very intent on removing his shirt. Very tactile sort, nearly."

 

Thorin's eyes narrowed, but the crinkling at their corners gave the lie away. "'Nearly', you say."

 

"Nearly," Bilbo confirmed. "Seemed the kind to wait on an invitation." He set his hand upon Thorin's chest. Through cloth and hair and skin and bone, Thorin's heart drummed against his fingers. "I suppose I shall need to scrounge up some stationery and ink."

 

At last, Thorin's hand returned to its proper position, stroking Bilbo's ailing head. "When you are well, I will provide you with them."

 

"I can dictate, if you can write."

 

"'If'? You doubt my skill with the pen?"

 

A shocked giggle burst from Bilbo's mouth. " _Thorin_."

 

"A simple enough question," said Thorin.

 

"Thorin, it hurts to laugh."

 

"You think my skill laughable?" Thorin propped himself up on an elbow and loomed over Bilbo. "Do you think me some spiller of bottles or chewer of nibs?"

 

Belly shaking, Bilbo squeaked behind his hands. "Thorin, _please_. Stop or you'll break me."

 

"Aye, and mend you after." Fingers wrapped easily about a pair of wrists, Thorin drew Bilbo's hands away from his face. Bilbo caught at Thorin's shirt instead.

 

"Mend me now," Bilbo pled with a tug. "I'm broken enough."

 

"I do know of a way to push back pain," Thorin said slowly. Under the blankets, he laid his hand on Bilbo's stomach. His eyes never left Bilbo's.

 

Bilbo let out a plaintive sigh. "And you kept it from me? In my time of utmost need?" He wilted until Thorin again smiled. "Would you deny me that comfort?" Bilbo added, and Thorin snorted.

 

"I would give it to you now, if you insist."

 

"Oh, I do."

 

Bilbo placed his hand over Thorin's, not guiding in either direction, simply a touch, and Thorin did not move. His expression so very terribly sober, he watched Bilbo's face. His eyes were almost confused, as if only accustomed to gazing upon his desires from afar.

 

"Should I take off my shirt?" Bilbo asked, and that earned him a blink. "Or open my trousers?"

 

Thorin's eyes darkened. "Remove them."

 

"I'm afraid I might need help." He led Thorin's hand downward, a pleasing journey in its own right. "So sorry for the bother."

 

For a moment, barely even that, Thorin made a one-handed fumble at the laces. With a great shifting of blankets and much too much cold air stealing in, Thorin threw a leg over him and sat kneeling aside Bilbo's knees. The blankets fell off his shoulders to land behind his waist. Largely uncovered himself, Bilbo shivered.

 

Looking up, Bilbo very nearly wished the hints of daylight at the window to grow stronger. Shadows hid themselves among the falls of Thorin's hair, turning it thicker, deeper, darker. Bilbo's gaze drew lower, peering at sleep-rumpled clothes with squinting eyes.

 

If Thorin took any notice of the scrutiny, he gave no sign. The tiny knots of Hobbits posed a challenge to Dwarven fingers, but only for so long. The pounding in Bilbo's head came from a much pleasanter source, and it was suddenly difficult to breathe.

 

"Lift," Thorin ordered, and, oh, that wasn't a lack of pain, that was a surfeit of distractions.

 

"You're sitting on my legs." In truth, Thorin sat over his legs, bearing his weight with his own legs, but there wasn't any need to admit that. Bilbo arched his back in a clumsy lift. Thorin tugged trousers and smallclothes together down his thighs. The blanket scratched against his bum, and this was why Bilbo squirmed, no matter what Thorin might think with his persistent eyes and growing smirk.

 

Bilbo poked him on the knee. When Thorin's smirk only widened, Bilbo poked him a bit higher on the thigh, and a bit higher still. Thorin caught his hand before Bilbo could climb to more interesting heights, but not before the extent of those heights became clear.

 

"I would not trust my restraint," Thorin warned. There was a strain to him, much as there had been the entire morning, but it was not the strain of a lover overcome. He caught Bilbo's other hand immediately. "Before anything else, I would have you."

 

Bilbo swallowed, working some moisture into his dry mouth. "In which way?"

 

Hair spilling over his shoulders, Thorin answered with a raised eyebrow and a lowered head.

 

"Yes," Bilbo said immediately. "You may certainly, yes."

 

Thorin kissed him, low. Low and lower, and then, in a different way, higher.

 

" _Oh_ ," said Bilbo, and he let his head fall back. "You, ah, you make yourself at home." He felt Thorin's chuckle more than he heard it, his own breathing abruptly much too loud.

 

With his hands firm on Bilbo's hips, Thorin made good on the invitation. His mouth descended, and descended, and, true to the scale of Dwarf to Hobbit, Thorin proved himself the larger, breathing easily around him. Slow and gentle, he pulled with lips and tongue, the wet heat of his mouth matching the blaze of the damp palms holding Bilbo fast upon the bed. Thorin's thumbs stroked over his skin, fingertips pressing into the flesh of his rear.

 

Pleasure and comfort sinking through him, Bilbo threaded his fingers through thick, dark hair. Not to tug or guide, merely to hold. Barely to hold, neither daring to nor needing to.

 

Thorin had him slowly, more slowly than Bilbo normally could have withstood. Soft noises escaped his mouth as easily as paper flew in a breeze. Slow by slow, touch by touch, Bilbo melted against the bed, melted under his Dwarf.

 

A scrape of teeth. A swallow. The scratch of a beard against the small hairs of his groin. A tongue, darting out, licking lower. Nearly taking all of him, not merely the shaft but all of him, so very nearly.

 

"Thorin," Bilbo whispered, and he would call it a warning.

 

Thorin stayed with him throughout, from first tremble to final gasp. He stroked Bilbo's sides as he pulled off at last, and Bilbo fought to lift his head, to stare at more than the ceiling. He managed one look, just the one before collapsing back against his pillow, and that was enough. Thorin, kneeling over him, mouth wet and eyes bright, eyes desperate.

 

"Come up here," Bilbo murmured. "Can't reach."

 

With a sharp gesture, Thorin bid him to wait. To Bilbo's immense surprise and even greater disapproval, Thorin climbed off him and off the bed as well.

 

Blinking, Bilbo forced himself up onto his elbows and slumped, watching Thorin round the end of the bed. The lid of the chamber pot rattled against the floor, and Thorin spat.

 

Bilbo snorted, his racing heart slowing. "You needn't have, you know."

 

Thorin shushed him, unmoving behind the footboard. Or perhaps not unmoving after all. Though his feet were planted, his hands were busy out of Bilbo's sight.

 

"What are you doing?" Bilbo asked.

 

"What does it look like I'm doing," Thorin countered with something of a snap, eyes stubborn and closed.

 

_Leaving me to have off into a pot on your own_ , Bilbo thought but, between his spent body and recovering head, did not have the strength to say. Certainly, he didn't have the time before Thorin let out a mighty groan.

 

Eyes wide and mouth gaping, Bilbo sat straight up, and then he heard the accompanying sounds. He giggled long and hard, curling in half, to see such bliss from pissing like a pony.

 

"You could have done that first!" Bilbo gasped out between his laughter. "You needn't have, oh dear, _Thorin_."

 

"Stop talking," Thorin ordered, the words slurred in a slack mouth.

 

"I could have waited!"

 

"Perhaps, but I would not. Now quiet."

 

Bilbo quieted, though only with difficulty. It was a terribly long piss, and it soon had him aching in sympathy. Pulling up his trousers, he climbed down from the high mattress to wobble upon the floor.

 

"Back on the bed," Thorin told him.

 

"I think I'll join you here first."

 

Thorin shifted, but only just, and truthfully, he had admirable aim for one so aroused. Side by side, they found their relief, and when Bilbo replaced the lid upon the pot, he bent over perhaps a touch more than necessary. He also entirely failed to lift his trousers from around his ankles.

 

"Back on the bed," Thorin repeated.

 

"Only if you're ready," Bilbo said, stepping free. "I'd hate to rush you."

 

In the moments following, none of the rush belonged to Bilbo. He landed on the bed with a giggle and a squirm. Thorin followed, although his clothing did not.

 

"The boat will not wait forever," Thorin said, as if there was a need to justify eagerness.

 

"Neither will I," Bilbo agreed, and Thorin's smile had the brilliance of a sunrise, with the added benefit of not actually hurting the eyes. "It's long past time for breakfast, you know."

 

Bilbo yelped as he was crushed against the mattress. "Thorin," he cried, "don't break me again!"

 

"How else then would I mend you?"

 

"It'll be quite some time before I can consider either." He tangled his hands in Thorin's hair, brushing that dark curtain back from their faces. "Now budge, and let me touch you."

 

Thorin shook his head. Coincidentally, his nose rubbed against Bilbo's. "Stay as you are."

 

"Crushed flat?"

 

With a mighty sigh, Thorin rolled and twisted, and Bilbo found himself holding on very tightly indeed. He also found himself sitting upright, straddling Thorin's lap, with his own legs in great disagreement with the idea.

 

"I can move on my own, you realise," Bilbo complained, rearranging himself within the limits of Thorin's hold. He slid down into Thorin's open lap, bum again on rough sheets, legs loosely hooked about Thorin's waist. "I am perfectly capable, thank you--"

 

Thorin cut him off, but forgivably. For all his rolling about and risking the wrong kind of poke to a tender region, he cupped Bilbo's face with great care. His mouth was soft, his motions gentle, and his moustache in the way. There was hair everywhere: against Bilbo's mouth, beneath his hands, furred skin under even his thighs.

 

Bilbo dragged his hands upward, downward, any direction they might go. He touched muscle and scar and a great deal more hair, and he grinned against a slow, chastising bite. He sent his hand lower, and then the other, needing both. What little throbbing left in his head was delightfully small in comparison.

 

He murmured into Thorin's mouth, an unthinking babble, encouragement and praise and a call for guidance, for instruction.

 

"Continue," Thorin rasped, devoid of concrete suggestion. "As you are." He kissed Bilbo between each breath. "I could ask for no more."

 

"You ought to spend yourself on me," said Bilbo, encouraging him with both word and deed. "As, oh, as a matter of, of practicality." His words hitched as Thorin's beard tickled his neck, to say nothing of what Thorin's mouth did. "I am much more easily cleaned than the sheets. Simply good manners."

 

Thorin laughed his way into a groan, a low rumble that spilled from him to Bilbo. A glorious sound it was, full of feeling and pushing against his skin. Bilbo coaxed him through with fumbling, slippery hands.

 

"You are," Thorin began, pleasingly dazed, but continued no further.

 

"Mended and mussed, I'd say," Bilbo answered.

 

"Aye, you are that." He gathered Bilbo close as if arranging a beloved blanket. "And many things more."

 

"Hungry, for one."

 

"So I have seen," Thorin answered with no faint smirk.

 

Bilbo huffed and had his huff kissed away. Settling into a more horizontal position, their earlier aim proved itself for nought, but there was little embarrassment or fuss Bilbo could spare for the bedding.

 

"You seem much improved," Thorin said.

 

"And you smug," Bilbo countered without bite.

 

Eyes soft, Thorin shook his head against their pillow. "Pleased."

 

"You are a horrific flirt, you sappy old Dwarf."

 

"And blessed with the most excellent of omens," Thorin agreed. He kissed Bilbo once more, close and lingering and not entirely conducive to nodding off contentedly. "Come," Thorin said. He did not so much pull away as pull Bilbo with him. "Though not half so pleasing, there is much which remains to do."

 

"Thorin," said Bilbo.

 

His motions far more relaxed this second time, Thorin climbed down from the bed. He held out his hands in a ruse of assistance, playful in his nakedness, but Bilbo did not follow.

 

"Thorin," said Bilbo once more. "About... about earlier. About lacking for words."

 

His eyes full, Thorin made no reply aloud. He merely nodded a question.

 

"I, well." Bilbo took a great breath and a greater leap. "My head doesn't hurt so much now."

 

Though Thorin's hands were already lifted in support, they rose higher, as if reaching. "I will tend to you until you are pained not at all," Thorin promised, utterly naked, utterly bare.

 

Blushing fiercely and yet unashamed, Bilbo hopped down, smiling, into his arms. 


End file.
